Genesis 3:14-15 is often taken to predict how Jesus will triumph over Satan, who is called the serpent here, and to some extent this is a valid understanding of the verse. However, it is sheer folly to think that the Bible is clear about what this prediction means or that one could reason out the distinctions between a first and second coming of the messianic figure from scattered verses like this one. It is only with the New Testament that the figurative and literal elements of how Genesis 3:14-15 overlaps with the rest of Christian theology becomes clearer. Perhaps a new reader might realize this if they have made no assumptions while reading and thinking about the passage, but many Christians forget that very little about what Messianic prophecies is anything more than vague and seemingly random on their own.
While the New Testament is utterly vague and unhelpful on its own when it comes to moral commands, as it is meant to be approached with the Old Testament in mind, the opposite is true of what each major side of the Bible says about the "Messiah" who Jesus is eventually introduced as. At least Genesis 3:14-15 actually anticipates a Messiah with some clarity as to the topic at hand; many other prophecies that the New Testament attributes to Jesus are not even clearly prophesies. Some, like David's expression of agony in Psalm 22, are more like descriptions of circumstances that apply to previous figures in Biblical history and happen to also parallel or match the circumstances Jesus finds himself in. This does not mean the prophecies are false or unconnected to Jesus: they are just less precise or clear than some assume.
The Messianic prophecies are sometimes so ambiguous that many modern Christians would scarcely be able to relate them to each other and connect them with the figure of Jesus if was not for the fact that the New Testament already does this--I mean in the sense that they are just assuming that these predictions apply to Jesus because the New Testament claims this about some of them. They are starting with the evangelical ideas about Christology, which are rooted mostly in the New Testament and have some serious flaws, and then working their way backwards instead of starting with the foundations and working forward. It is very unlikely that the typical evangelical has ever seriously thought about the issue without having made assumptions beforehand about what the Bible teaches on the matter, and these assumptions might be seen as necessary parts of Christian theology and life, when assumptions of any kind are philosophically asinine and potentially disastrous.
Nonetheless, the prophecies Jesus appeals to truly are consistent with the idea that he is the Messiah, but it would be extremely difficult in some cases and impossible in others to actually put together a clear and detailed description of the then-future Messiah from them. It would be easy for the typical evangelical, who blindly agrees with church tradition and thinks there might be something flawed about their theology if they dispute or distance themselves from contemporary consensus, to take for granted that these prophecies refer to Jesus. This is far from obvious and impossible to demonstrate fully from the Old Testament texts without hindsight. A reader unfamiliar with the claims of Christians and who does not make assumptions would not be able to rationally conclude much about the Messiah promised in Genesis 3:14-15.
The Messiah is simply a more ambiguous figure in Old Testament prophecy and eschatology than the evangelical claims about the issue would suggest. Even though a more incompetent kind of thinker might assume that this challenges or refutes the way New Testament theology builds off of Old Testament theology, it is not a threat to the possible veracity of Christian ideas. It is not necessary for Messianic predictions to not be vague in order for them to still be true, and specifically true in applying to Jesus. What this does mean is that it is dishonest and irrational to believe, say, or imply that there is clear prophetic basis for expecting the type of person the New Testament presents Jesus as. Biblical Christology can be analyzed and discovered without the aid of the unnecessary, false, or assumption-based ideas often paired with it.
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